13 April, 2016

Former CIA analyst: Ukrainian coup 'interim step for toppling Putin'

Now that
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has resigned, former CIA
analyst Ray McGovern speaks with Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear
to discuss who’s in line to be the US-approved replacement. "It
was the most bizarre experience, because never before had I seen a
coup advertised in advance," McGovern tells Loud &
Clear, referring to the US-orchestrated Maidan protests in Kiev that
led to the government of President Petro Poroshenko and Prime
Minister Yatsenyuk.

"We
had the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria
Nuland telling [US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey] Pyatt on
an…unencrypted telephone conversation, 'Look, we got this thing
wired. We got this thing glued, and we’re midwifing this thing and
Yats is the guy.'"

That
conversation was published on YouTube two weeks before the coup took
place. "Yatsenyuk was appointed the prime minister,
recognized immediately by our government, and he clearly was the guy
that we picked to do our dirty work." This was implemented
through the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy, as well as
other State Department projects.

[...]

But the
destabilization of Ukraine is only the first part of a multi-step
plan. "The National Endowment for Democracy…talked about
Ukraine being the biggest prize, sort of an interim step toward
toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin," McGovern says.
"He said overtly, 'Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will
accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that
Putin represents. Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find
himself on the losing end, not just in the near abroad, but in Russia
itself.'" Yatsenyuk’s resignation on Sunday shows the
ongoing problems within the US-appointed Poroshenko government.

[...]

While
Yatsenyuk will leave power with little or no fanfare, the situation
in Kiev is unlikely to improve. "Ukraine is in shambles. This
is a classic case of engineering a coup and not worrying about what
happens the next day," McGovern says. "Where can
Ukrainians – who, as you say, are really suffering terribly –
where can they expect to get help? Well they should be able to expect
to get help from the perpetrators of this coup…though, if I were
Ukrainian, I would have to look to my own devices, because Europeans
and Americans are really good about destroying things…but not so
much the next day."